Chapter 223: Chapter 223: Your brother in private
"Assuming he survives it," Lucius muttered.
The words hung longer than they should have, heavier. None of them corrected it. Because they knew better.
Sirius set down his glass, the clink against the porcelain plate unnaturally loud in the thick quiet that followed. His gaze didn’t lift immediately, but when it did, it was serious in a way that rarely made an appearance outside wartime maps and formal succession councils.
"Speaking of survival," Sirius said, voice even but laced with meaning, "it’s time we acknowledged our own." His eyes flicked to Lucas. "You."
Lucas stiffened, barely, just a subtle shift of his shoulders, the faintest drop in his gaze. He didn’t answer.
As Trevor’s hand moved beneath the table, brushing against his wrist, Lucas grabbed it to calm himself down.
Lucius, unusually subdued, nodded once. "You’ve been publicly presented as Grand Duchess of the North, but not as part of the imperial family."
"And we want that to change," Sirius added. "Not for titles or politics, but because it’s the truth. You’re our blood and brother."
Lucas’s jaw tightened. "No."
The refusal was quiet, but absolute.
Trevor didn’t flinch. He had expected it. Lucius and Sirius, however, both paused. Sirius leaned forward slightly, confusion flickering behind the calm. "Why not?"
Lucas’s fingers curled lightly around the base of his cup. His expression was unreadable, the cultivated neutrality of someone who had been forced to become good at not flinching.
"I have no need to be paraded as something I was never allowed to be." His tone didn’t sharpen, it dulled instead. "Serathine already gave me a title. I have a home. I have a husband. That’s enough."
Lucius’s frown deepened, not out of offense, but understanding, the kind that stung worse than anger. "You shouldn’t have had to earn what was yours from the beginning."
"And yet I did." Lucas didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. "You were the heirs. I was a complication. Hidden, ignored, then shuffled into a political match. If I hadn’t ended up in Trevor’s hands, I would’ve been sold again by now, title or not."
Sirius’s expression cracked, just faintly, around the edges. "That was never our wish."
"That didn’t have anything to do with you, but with Caelan and Misty, and be honest, would you have refused Dax if I didn’t have Trevor near me six months ago?"
Sirius didn’t answer right away.
The silence said enough.
Lucas didn’t look surprised, just tired. Bone-deep and quiet, like someone who had already made peace with the truth before daring to say it aloud.
"I wouldn’t have let them," Sirius said at last, voice lower. "But I wouldn’t have fought them soon enough either. Not if you hadn’t had Trevor."
"And that," Lucas murmured, "is why I don’t want to be brought back into the fold. I survived outside of it. I found myself there." His gaze flicked toward Trevor. "And I have no intention of letting anyone redefine me now that I’m finally whole."
Lucius leaned forward, elbows on the table, his tone quieter than before. "We’re not trying to redefine you, Lucas. Just acknowledge you. Fully. Not as a duchess, not as a title. As our brother."
Lucas’s eyes sharpened. "And I’m telling you that being your brother in private is enough. I don’t want to be the next variable in Sirius’s path to the throne. I don’t want to be weaponized when things get messy again. You know they will."
Sirius nodded, reluctantly. "They already are."
"I don’t want courtiers measuring my every word and wondering if I’ll split your support," Lucas continued. "Or if Trevor’s name tied to mine makes me a threat."
"It doesn’t," Sirius said firmly.
"But it could," Lucas replied, just as firmly. "And I won’t give them the chance. Let me remain what I am. Grand Duchess. Quiet. Political enough to matter, invisible enough to stay safe."
Trevor’s hand squeezed his under the table. He didn’t speak, but Lucas knew he agreed. Lucas wasn’t hiding, he was choosing peace. And that, in a court like theirs, was its own kind of war.
Lucius sat back slowly. "Then we won’t force it."
Sirius looked like he hated every word, but he nodded. "But you’re still ours. You always will be."
Trevor didn’t let go of Lucas’s hand.
When he spoke, his voice was light, almost conversational. But beneath the calm cadence was something colder, a low hum of warning wrapped in civility.
"Lucas is mine," he said. "He carries my name. My ring. And anyone, be it family or a foreign court, who wants to redefine him will find themselves trying to rewrite something I already signed in blood."
Lucius stilled, his fork mid-air. Sirius’s fingers tightened against his glass.
Trevor smiled, just a little. It didn’t reach his dark purple eyes.
"I understand the sentiment. Truly," he continued, tone still mild, almost amused. "But if you’re looking to make peace with the past, do it without placing him back on the imperial board. He’s not your variable to play."
Lucas didn’t move, but something in his shoulders eased. That quiet kind of gratitude that didn’t need words.
Lucius met Trevor’s gaze and, for the first time in a long while, looked like a strategist remembering he wasn’t the only wolf at the table. "That’s not what we intended."
"Good," Trevor murmured. "Because my patience ends where his name begins."
Sirius let out a slow breath, then nodded. "You’ve made your point."
Trevor’s head tilted, pleasant as ever. "I tend to."
Lucas exhaled faintly, eyes flicking toward his husband and then to his brothers.
"Now do we keep fighting, gossip Dax, or talk about the weather?"
Lucius blinked, then snorted, short and sharp, like a cough trying to pretend it wasn’t a laugh. Sirius, less dignified, let out something closer to a huff through his nose, setting his empty glass down with a clink.
Trevor, still holding Lucas’s hand, leaned back in his chair with the lazy ease of someone who had no intention of rising soon. "The weather, clearly. I hear Baye’s expecting another coastal storm. Tragic. So inconvenient for foreign diplomats who can’t swim, but Serathine does."
Lucas didn’t smile, not fully, but the corners of his mouth pulled up just slightly. "You’re terrifying."
"I’m consistent," Trevor replied, brushing his thumb once more over Lucas’s wrist before releasing his hand. "And married."
Sirius leaned forward, fingers laced, expression sharp again. "All right. We’ll shelve the politics for today. But keep an ear open. If Dax moves too fast with the Malek boy, we need a response ready before the others start circling."
Lucius reached for another slice of pear. "And by ’response,’ you mean...?"
"Something diplomatic," Sirius said flatly. "Preferably. Unless Dax starts a war because someone looked wrong at his omega."
Trevor’s smile curved like a knife sheathed in velvet—polite, pleasant, and utterly without warmth. "Then let’s hope no one looks too long. Dax has never been known for his restraint. Especially not when it comes to what’s his."
Lucas didn’t comment, but the flicker in his gaze was knowing, quiet as a lit fuse. He leaned back just enough to let his spine press into the chair’s frame, gaze drifting toward the high windows where the light cut across the floor in gold lines.
Lucius, undeterred, popped the slice of pear into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "Well. That’ll be fun for the next summit."
Trevor tilted his head slightly. "Only if Saha still has a summit. The last time someone tried to veto Dax’s entry clause, he rerouted his fleet through a diplomatic harbor and declared it an accident."
Sirius gave him a long look. "That was an accident."
"It was an accident," Trevor said, voice all smooth warning, "that conveniently resulted in the offending lord’s entire archive being flooded and his heir marrying into Dax’s court two weeks later."
Lucas blinked once, deadpan. "Romantic."
Trevor arched a brow. "Efficient."
Sirius pinched the bridge of his nose. "Gods help Christopher Malek."